Alex Cochran, Deseret Information
It's a journalist’s obligation, and dare I say pleasure, to uncover the lesser-known information concerning the world’s strongest figures, whether or not it is Kim Jong-un’s love of Disney or Mohammed bin Salman watching “Sport of Thrones” to unwind.
So my curiosity was piqued when a bit tittle-tattle landed on my information desk. A co-worker’s relative, who had sat subsequent to Merrill Osmond on a airplane, relayed a wierd story — Saddam Hussein, one of the feared dictators of the final century, was (allegedly) an Osmonds fanboy.
I set concerning the formidable process of figuring out if this rumor held any water.
The Osmonds are, after all, a healthful household musical group from Ogden, Utah. They received their begin as a barbershop quartet in Disneyland and went on to turn into a world-famous pop-rock group with 47 gold and platinum information to their title. Saddam, alternatively, was the previous dictator of Iraq, identified for killing his personal residents.
Absolutely a narrative like this might be documented on the web, I naively thought, however was capable of finding solely a quick point out in an outdated interview from The Guardian.
Merrill Osmond, the oldest sibling and vocalist/bassist within the group, gave a one-sentence account: “When the navy caught Saddam Hussein,” he mentioned, “they found he had an entire assortment of Osmonds information.”
I wanted extra particulars. I wished the reality.
The primary to reply to my inquiries concerning the story was Donny Osmond’s publicist. Donny carried out together with his brothers earlier than going solo and incomes his personal place within the echelons of celeb (featured in “Begin the Par-dee” with rapper Lil Yachty).
His publicist’s response was cryptic: “We will verify that that is one thing we/Workforce Donny have been advised to be true.” However when pressed for supply particulars, the publicist mentioned, “Nobody is certain of the origin. It is perhaps factual however there is no such thing as a dependable supply that we’re conscious of.”
There are a lot of wild myths which have swirled across the Osmonds. Folks say they had been pals with Elvis, the Jackson 5, Frank Sinatra and the Bee Gees. Chuck Norris supposedly taught them Tang Soo Do (a Korean martial artwork) which they utilized in a lot of their choreography afterward.
“When the navy caught Saddam Hussein, they found he had an entire assortment of Osmonds information.”
The Osmonds had been allegedly deputized and moved into the Riveria residences in Provo, Utah, after the Symbionese Liberation Military, a home terrorist group from Berkeley, California, threatened to kill off each band member individually.
I spoke with Merrill Osmond about all these tales, and he stood by each final considered one of them.
“We needed to significantly talk about whether or not we might proceed to do what we had been doing,” he mentioned, speaking concerning the threats to his household.
When requested whether or not or not Saddam actually owned Osmonds information, Merrill chuckled and mentioned, “The CIA advised our attorneys on the time, that they'd discovered our information in a vault beneath considered one of (Saddam’s) palaces.”
So there it was, straight from an Osmond’s mouth. However two ranges of separation remained between me and the reality — Merrill’s attorneys and the CIA. There was a lot work to be performed.
Saddam is without doubt one of the extra infamous figures in historical past. In response to the U.S. State Division, his regime “systematically executed, tortured, imprisoned, raped, terrorized and repressed Iraqi individuals.” He was the primary chief to make use of chemical weapons on his personal, killing 30,000 residents with mustard gasoline and nerve brokers.
Former President George W. Bush addressed the nation after Saddam was captured in December 2003, pulled from a gap within the floor close to a farmhouse exterior town of Tikrit — “I've a message for the Iraqi individuals: You'll not need to worry the rule of Saddam Hussein ever once more.”
He was taken into U.S. Military custody, had a really public trial and was sentenced to demise by hanging, which came about three years after his seize, per CNN. Regardless of the horror of his regime, persistent rumors flow into concerning the extra human moments of his life — his household dynamics, his tastes in poetry and literature, his beverage of selection and his lavish palaces that dot the panorama from Tikrit to Bahgdad.
Approaching the Osmond rumor from the surface, one should first ask if this chief was a fan of Western music typically, and extra particularly, Osmondmania.
I didn't need to look very arduous to study a number of shocking information about Saddam Hussein:
- He was a broadcast romance writer. (Assessment: “poorly structured and uninteresting ... it's at the least coherent, so kudos to Saddam for that.”)
- His favourite motion pictures had been “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Outdated Man and the Sea” (1958).
- He pressured an important Islamic calligrapher to transcribe the Qur’an, utilizing 27 liters of his personal blood.
Clearly he had an eye fixed for the humanities. However taking notes from Joseph Stalin (his hero), Saddam weaponized his “refined” tastes by tightly controlling inventive manufacturing throughout his reign.
As a musician, it was apparently a curse to catch Saddam’s ear. Nasrat Al-Bader and plenty of different gifted musicians had been as soon as locked inside a recording studio, whereas bombs fell on town, till they composed a big quota of propagandist songs to be performed on nationwide tv and radio, in keeping with Vice.
“Patriotic music” was at all times taking part in on the radio, and in keeping with PBS Frontline, Saddam would broadcast music movies nightly. His son, the infamously unstable Uday, would edit and stream Western music and flicks on a second channel, “Youth TV,” stories the Aspen Institute.
So Saddam was undoubtedly conscious of music popping out of the U.S., and in some recorded circumstances he preferred it. When he was up for reelection, he used a translated model of Whitney Houston’s “I Will At all times Love You” as his reelection music. Most likely probably the most profitable marketing campaign soundtrack in historical past, as he obtained 99.96% of the vote per The LA Instances.
Will Bardenwerper was an Airborne Ranger within the Military and interviewed U.S. troopers tasked with guarding Saddam after he was captured. He advised me “(Saddam) positively did talk about with a few of his guards an curiosity in some elements of Western tradition that went towards the notion of his hostility in direction of Western tradition.”
“When scanning radio channels, Hussein would cease and hear when a Mary J. Blige music got here on.”
“Sure he was a monster, and sure he was responsible of crimes towards humanity, however he additionally possessed a really highly effective private magnetism and a curiosity about different locations,” mentioned Bardenwerper, although he admitted Saddam’s expressed curiosity in Western tradition may have been a ploy to ingratiate himself together with his guards.
The radio station that Hussein and his captors listened to was hosted by the American Forces Community — suppose Robin Williams in “Good Morning, Vietnam” besides in 160 international locations, streaming all types of leisure through satellite tv for pc 24/7. When Baghdad fell in 2003, they started their broadcast with “Freedom” by Paul McCartney (coincidentally, an Osmond fan). AFN, in keeping with Public Affairs Officer John Clearwater, is “the world’s largest leisure community you by no means heard of.”
Bardenwerper mentioned the imprisoned dictator bonded with one soldier over their love of Western motion pictures, and when scanning AFN radio channels, Hussein would cease and hear when a Mary J. Blige music got here on.
In response to Tom Arnholt, AFN’s chief of radio, the Osmonds weren’t being performed on AFN throughout the time, so it’s arduous to garner any clues from his listening habits whereas imprisoned.
I additionally spoke with journalists and photographers who had been in Saddam’s palaces when Baghdad fell on the off-chance they noticed the vault.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Zucchino was embedded within the 2nd Brigade, third Infantry Division (Mechanized) after they seized Baghdad with a daring run of tanks by way of the center of town. Reporting for the LA Instances, he mentioned “for all its claims to Islamic piety, the regime’s elite was Western to its core. Their grand houses hid American computer systems, whiskey, pornography, movies and pop music.”
After I contacted him, he didn't recall discovering any document assortment, although cassettes of “The Bee Gees Biggest Hits Vol. II,” and “Disco Pageant ’85” had been present in a palace. Spencer Willardson, a Utah Nationwide Guard officer from the third Infantry Division, claims to have discovered Saddam’s high-end alcohol, clear underwear and tens of 1000's of weapons — however no Osmonds.
I spoke with a slew of photographers for main information organizations, however none may corroborate the Osmonds story. However that’s to not say the Osmonds best hits weren’t at considered one of Hussein’s properties. In response to NBC, Saddam constructed an estimated 100 palaces, and stored them absolutely staffed always so nobody knew the place he was at any given second.
It stays tough to show or disprove the Hussein fandom rumor as a result of it’s unattainable to know what was in each a kind of palaces. In the event that they had been discovered, it might be tough to know whether or not the mansion was Saddam’s residence or considered one of his relations’.
There was one ultimate angle to discover: Merrill mentioned the CIA known as his attorneys.
John Nixon, a former senior intelligence analyst chargeable for Saddam’s questioning after seize, is a holder of many secrets and techniques. He made it no secret how he feels concerning the rumor. “I can solely say that I'm not shopping for what Merrill Osmond’s attorneys are promoting.”
Nixon reached out to extra CIA contacts — the top of his analytics staff on the time had no recollection of this and neither did Nixon’s successor.
Perhaps a rumor like this grabs the general public’s consideration as a result of it's shocking and ironic. “For some motive, we’ve turn into this nation the place individuals want the parable to the reality,” Nixon mentioned, “Folks don’t know what’s actual anymore.”
I assume I’m a kind of individuals. Regardless of my finest efforts I nonetheless don’t know, for actual, if Saddam was an Osmonds fanboy.